Albert Davis Lasker (May 1, 1880 – May 30, 1952) was an American businessman who played a major role in shaping modern advertising.

In 1898 his father, who disapproved of journalism,[5] persuaded Lasker to move to Chicago to try an advertising position at Lord & Thomas.

[6][1] After he worked as an office boy for a year, one of the agency's salesmen left, and Lasker acquired his territory.

He hired a friend, Eugene Katz, to write the copy for a series of Wilson Ear Drum Company ads.

As head of Lord & Thomas, Lasker devised a copywriting technique that appealed directly to the psychology of the consumer.

Lasker's use of radio, particularly with his campaigns for Palmolive soap, Pepsodent toothpaste, Kotex products, and Lucky Strike cigarettes, not only revolutionized the advertising industry but also significantly changed popular culture.

The citrus industry was in a slump, and California growers were producing so many oranges that they were cutting down trees in order to limit supply.

[10] Among Lasker's pioneering contributions was the introduction into public schools of classes that explained to young girls about puberty and menstruation (done to promote Kotex tampons).

[1] Lasker, along with his business partner Charles Weeghman, are credited with moving the Cubs into the club's current home, Wrigley Field.

In 1925, he sold the team to one of his minor partners, William Wrigley Jr. Lasker became the second-largest shareholder in the Pepsodent company,[13] which had become an L&T client in 1916.

[1] On June 9, 1921, President Harding's appointment of Lasker as chairman of the United States Shipping Board was confirmed by the US Senate.

[18] Lasker, who had no previous experience in the shipping business before his appointment, true to his word, ended his service in office on July 1, 1923.

The book "The Man Who Sold America," by Jeffrey L. Cruikshank and Arthur W. Schultz, posits that Lasker had Bipolar II disorder, which affected his personal and work life.

He was frequently expansive, irritable, highly verbal, intensely creative, and insomniac—all symptoms of a condition that today would be called hypomania.

He never ascended to the level of mania that is generally associated with manic depression, or—again in today's vocabulary—a bipolar I disorder, although he sometimes behaved erratically, especially under the influence of alcohol.

Morris Lasker, Albert's father, also may have experienced depressions: his rollercoaster financial affairs may have had their root, in part, in some sort of affective illness.

Bipolar I—the affective state that is accompanied by wild, manic excess—usually first manifests itself in the teenage years, while the more subtle, hypomanic form of the illness often stays masked until the mid- or late twenties.